The rain became harder and the Grey Squirrel vanished into the
adjoining hedge, only to emerge a minute later, now choosing to
use the same umbrella trick but in a corner of the gate with some
overhead shelter.

28 Jul 2014

There are 2 Wren nests on the edge of our living room window, one
a bit less than a metre below the one just above the window that
this bird is visiting with a beakload of insects for the growing chicks.

27 Jul 2014

Over a distant pasture this male Kestrel's hover (top bird)
suddenly became an accelerating drop to the ground. The drop
of the hovering bird was picked up after about half a second. The
drop lasted only about 1.5 seconds. He disappeared into the long grass.

The rodent gripped in this male Kestrel's claws is lined up in the direction of
flight for Aerodynamic efficiency.
We would love to say this visit of the male Kestrel was him taking away
something he caught after his fast descent, but this is an hour later.

25 Jul 2014

The warmest pond had a scattering of Large Red Damselflies
('Large' being a relative term!) laying eggs in the pond weed.
The female is on the leaf. The segments of the abdomen
hinge without any ill-effects.

24 Jul 2014

Our North boundary hedge has for a few years yielded the delight
of fluttering Demoiselle Damselflies as you walk down it for a
week or two each year. The Banded Demoiselle has been the
mainstay for a few years, but this year the Beautiful Demoiselle
is so far the only arrival - and beautiful fits the creature.
This is the female - we see far less of these than the
girl-hunting males!

Ref: DF2_20140519_1743_227 Beautiful Demoiselle female.jpg

Here is one of the male Beautiful Demoiselles living up to his name.

Ref: DF2_20140521_1047_275 Beautiful Demoiselle male (crop).jpg

23 Jul 2014

A pair of Orange-tip butterflies courting in the evening sunshine.
A mostly accurate montage to convey the action as they spiraled upwards.

22 Jul 2014

We 'inherited' these Aquilegia plants with the house 2 decades
ago and don't know whether this is the wild flower or a cultivar.
You have to get down on your knees to really appreciate it (or
look at these photos from somebody who did!)

Ref: P10_20140518_1437_007 Aquilegia flowers (crop).jpg

Ref: P10_20140518_1438_024 Aquilegia flowers (crop).jpg

21 Jul 2014

On one of the few Flag Iris flowers yet open, a Honey bee
collects his golden trophy. We see perhaps
only 10% of the number of honey bees now than we did 10 years ago

19 Jul 2014

The grass area inside the bend of the farm track make a lovely run-around for the hares
where we can photograph them over the hedge - a built-in 'hide'.
We have about doubled the horizontal spacing between frames, but otherwise accurate.

16 Jul 2014

This is a female Orange-tip Butterfly, who lacks the orange tip!
This one has been bird pecked, but you can enjoy the intricate
pattern on the rear wing underside (only) and the patch of the
same pattern on underside edge of the forewings so that the
disguise with wings vertical is complete.

Top right is the Male Orange-tip butterfly, together with an
image of the female and a flowering Garlic Mustard - one of their
favourite plants for egg laying which we encourage down our
trackway edge. We would love to have caught this setup 'for real'
but it's hard enough getting a decent image of one insect in
flight at a time, so this is a montage of 3 images to illustrate
what we see in the wild.

15 Jul 2014

We found 4 male Cockchafer beetles in the moth trap, but only this one would
fly for us. Beetles have 2-wings (the transparent lobe lower left
and right) with the other pair of wings evolved into the
protective wing case upper left and right.

We found 4 male Cockchafer beetles in the moth trap, but this is
one of those that would not fly for us. We released them all into
a bush near the house. According to 'the book' the powdery wing
case indicates a recent emergence.

Ref: DF2_20140518_1340_023 Cockchafer Beetle male on bush.jpg

14 Jul 2014

Hawk-moths are as big as UK moths get. With the 100 or so
Poplar trees planted along the farm track we have hopes of
being inundated with these Poplar Hawk-moths.
For now we just enjoyed just this one.

12 Jul 2014

This year a heron has been finding Newts in the pond near the
house, we think not Great Crested Newts this time. With care not to
move suddenly or into the light we can photograph this through
the Kitchen window

2 weeks later the Fox cubs are now more 'young foxes', no longer
chewing at the wood but licking off the delicious peanut butter.

Ref: E64_20140601_2130_182_FB2 Fox youngster licking end of log.jpg

10 Jul 2014

The Wrens obviously have youngsters to feed.
This bird seem to have at least 8 Greenfly to feed the chicks.

Ref: DF2_20140515_0623_317 Wren with several Greenfly in beak.jpg

09 Jul 2014

A Hare running into the Oil-seed Rape crop.
The sequence is a bit offset as it changes direction, and it is roughly
alternate frames as it lollops to the right, but it is as an accurate
representation as we can manage.

06 Jul 2014

If you watch a Blackbird land on the solid surface, over the
next few of seconds the bird raise it's tail almost vertical
and then lowers it. The whole procedure seems too slow to be
for regaining balance.

Ref: D36_20140515_0527_109_FB4 Blackbird male with tail up after landing.jpg

05 Jul 2014

The Jackdaw on the nest in this broken owl box leaves as soon as she hears us anywhere
on the site. We had to exit the house quietly and creep up to the
box to get this image.

04 Jul 2014

The Starling family in the loft are sounding noisy and healthy.
They make a visit every few minutes from Dawn till Dusk day in
day out. What a weight of worms they must carry in!
The first of the 6 images used is just the shadow lower right!

03 Jul 2014

Our Lilac bushes are flowering well this year.
A week later the whole head is the lightest pink you see here.

Ref: DF2_20140504_1739_045 Lilac Flowers (crop).jpg

The Horse-Chestnut trees are also flowering well.

Ref: DF2_20140505_0659_143 Horse Chestnut flower candle.jpg

Hawthorn blossom is lovely. Spectacularly white at a distance,
it is surprisingly colourful close up.

Ref: P10_20140506_1009_949 Hawthorn Blossom (crop).jpg

02 Jul 2014

In the atypical quiet of a public Holiday early morning the lack of traffic
along the business centre track tempted out the hares. This hare running across
the track was photographed at about 4 fps (so about 1.5 seconds here) though the
frame rate was slightly irregular because the camera wasn't set up for it -
these creatures just won't wait until you are ready!

A Grey Heron flies low over the Oil-seed Rape flowers that are
just beginning to wilt after 5 weeks of lurid backdrop, along
with sometimes thick heads & runny noses for even those not
normally afflicted with hay-fever.